Cape Town - A Bellville family are struggling to make sense of the death of their 27-year-old son, Wayne Thomas, whose body was found hanging in an office at a police station after he allegedly committed suicide on Sunday.
It is alleged that Thomas was arrested for assault and was left alone in one of the offices at the Bellville police station, with his left arm cuffed to a burglar door.
Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) spokesperson Grace Langa said the police allegedly left him to look for a second suspect in the same assault case, and on their return found him hanged against the burglar door with his body in a kneeling position.
“It is alleged that he used a cord to commit suicide as his right arm was not cuffed,” Langa said, assuring that they were investigating the case.
A family representative, Janine Booysen, said all they wanted was justice for Thomas. She said the family was heartbroken, and was trying to deal with the trauma.
ANC provincial spokesperson for community safety, Mesuli Kama, said the ANC was demanding answers, a full investigation, as well as that charges be brought against the officers who were allegedly responsible for the man’s death.
Kama said the family was only informed of Thomas’s death at 4am on Monday, and an ambulance only arrived at the police station at about 10am, with a forensics team arriving about an hour later.
“There are far too many unanswered questions. A thorough post-mortem must be held to establish the cause of death because the police say it’s suicide, and that he hanged himself. But this happened at the charge office. How does a person kill himself at the charge office? The police also denied the family access to the body,” he said.
Human rights activist Godfrey Luyt said this was not the first such incident to occur at the Bellville police station. Luyt said Gareth Louw also died there, on December 4 last year, after he was arrested at a friend’s house.
He said no suspect deserved to die while in police custody, under the supervision of the very officials who were responsible for safeguarding them.
Langa said the Ipid as an investigating body did not at this stage take a stance about what transpired. The police officers involved had rights, and the deceased’s family had the right to know what happened to their son.
“The community and civil society have every right to know what happened, but unfortunately Ipid does not have the answers yet. We appeal for calmness, patience as well as space to conduct our investigations with integrity, transparency and fairness,” Langa said.
She said that pressuring the investigators would compromise the case, which would deny the deceased and family justice.